‘Dirty hands’ in the Pacific

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Still image from the Kubota's feature film, Manos Sucias.
Still image from the Kubota's feature film, Manos Sucias.

It’s not the sort of movie that is going to sell you the Colombian Pacific. Besides the lush mangroves and volcanic estuaries, the 90 minute feature ‘Manos Sucias’ is a nail-bitting, gritty and jarring account of two Afro-Colombian men who are contracted by a criminal gang to haul a submersible filled with 100 kilos of cocaine to Panama.

From the opening scene of Josef Kubota’s saga the audience embarks on a visual “roadtrip” as men with machine guns escort a canoe through an encroaching rainforest. Delio and Jarlin, the main protagonists of this contemporary film noir, are willing to risk it all to comply with the orders of a local drug lord, even if they have to pretend to be fishermen from Buenaventura and navigate the treacherous swells of the Pacific.

With executive producer Spike Lee at the helm of Kubota’s feature, ‘ManosSucias’ is part action film, part social commentary of the rampant poverty that exists in Colombia’s most important port. The camera of Alan Blanco focuses in on Buenaventura’s crowded shanties, and the redeeming humanity of protagonists, 19-year-old Delio (Cristian Advincula) and 30-year-old Jacobo (Jarlin Martinez).

After given the stash of drugs and instructions on how to use the GPS to track their every move, the men head out to sea. But there’s a catch. Jarlin and Diego are given a “guide” of sorts: a low ranking thug from the interior who takes charge of the covert operation. After a melancholic start – with the outboard hauling the steel encased cargo – tension sets sit over racial slurs. It is evident that Jarlin and Diego are the third man’s slaves. After a day at sea, and a night sitting around a roaring fire, emotions reach breaking point. An innocent situation in which a group of children discover the raft on a sandbank, turns ugly and bloody. Jarlin and Diego are left alone with the submersible and the prospect of delivering it to cartel from Panama that is heading south to meet them at a designated point, on the open sea.

Born in Fairfax, Virginia, Josef Kubota, studied film at NYU and international commerce at the University James Madison. The son of Polish and Japanese parents, he was influenced at an early age by the movies of Kurosawa, Wajda and Kieslowski. He came to the story behind ‘Manos Sucias’ in 2006 after taking many boat trips with fishermen along Colombia’s Pacific coast. Hearing their stories of drug runs and radio controlled submarines filled with cocaine, Kubota, was moved by how the fighting between paramilitaries and guerrillas had displaced entire Afro-Colombian communities and contributed to the poverty and abandonment of the region. He returned on many trips over the next five years to develop the storyline and put together the framework for his gripping saga.

‘Manos Sucias’ is not a moral tale of drugs and the personal dramas of those who embark on these dangerous runs. It’s a humanistic story of two men cast out to sea, who share common interests (football and music), and are transformed into killers by circumstance, rather than being part of the ongoing conflict.

Kubota’s feature was screened this year at the Cartagena International Film Festival to critical acclaim. With its lush cinematography and soundtrack of Afro-Colombian chants, it promises to be a major contender for next year’s Oscar nominations. Shot on the beaches and coves of Bahía Malaga, as well as along the abandoned railroad tracks of San Cipriano, Valle de Cauca, ‘Manos Sucias’ is an important testimony of the tragedies so many in Buenaventura are exposed to every day, and a must see movie which opens at your local theatre, Thursday October 9th.

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